No Looking back
by Heiwako
Summary: The story of why Hecate ran away from home when she was a teen.


It was late enough that the moons had disappeared for the night. Not unusual for the time of year given how long the nights were, but it still filled me with dread. Mom had left the house almost nine hours ago to supposedly pick up some bread at the market before it closed. I hadn't heard a peep from her since then despite our small apartment being nearby. You'd think she would have come home or sent a message to let me know if she was going to be delayed.

I sighed, my breath fogging the window pane as I leaned against it. I wondered why I bothered worrying. It wasn't as if this was the first time she had done something like this. I thought about all of the other times she promised to pick me up from LuLu's or take me to the Imperial City for a mother/daughter special day, only to have her show up hours late or not get out of bed before early evening, making it much too late to consider a trip anywhere except the local bar.

But no matter how many times she disappointed me, she was my mom. And I loved her. It wasn't as if it was all bad times. There were lots of dinners together gossiping about boys. Or she would buy a trinket for me just because she thought of me. Or we'd do chores together even after she was tired from being up all night at her "job."

And she definitely never hit me. Not like Lulu's stepdad. Or several other kids I knew whose parents' fists were more communicative than their mouths.

It's just that I hated when she would randomly disappear like this. Usually she would be home by sunup, stumbling through the house while singing drunkenly. But sometimes she would be gone for days, leaving me waiting by the window worrying that a fisherman would find her in Nibenay Bay. Or what was left of her.

It didn't help that my mom was a streetwalker. I wasn't ashamed of it, and neither was she. It was a way for her to pay the bills and be independent. But it was also a dangerous job. More than once she had come home, shaking with fear because a customer had turned scary or she had found out one of the other women of the night had been brutalized or murdered.

So if I had a panic attack every Mom took off without a word, I liked to think I had a legitimate reason.

I was almost asleep, forehead still pressed against the cold window pane, when I heard the key rattling in the lock. I jumped to my feet, stool clattering under me, and fairly flew to the door. I threw it open to find Mom standing there, her face red from alcohol.

"By the Eight, where in Oblivion have you been?" I cried. I moved to hug her, but she pushed me away. Her face, cheerful a second ago, had turned ugly. She hadn't liked my greeting. As if I was supposed to be laissez-faire about her being gone.

"Out," she mumbled.

"You said you were just going to get bread," I pushed. I hated the words coming out of my mouth because I knew it would start a fight. When she was drunk, she treated any negative comment as an attack. "I was worried sick."

"I ran into a friend who was celebrating getting a new job," she said blithely as she slinked to the kitchen. She opened the cabinets and pulled out a mug and bottle of ale.

"And?"

"And it would have been rude to refuse to join him," she shrugged as she chugged her ale.

I didn't believe her story for one moment. When I was little, I bought those tales hook, line, and sinker. There would always be one reason or another she didn't have enough money for food, or why she was late, or how horrible her luck was. It took everything in me to not yell. "You could have let me know. I was worried."

"Gods, Rosa, who's the parent and who's the child here?" she scoffed.

I asked myself that question a lot.

"We live five minutes away from the market." I gestured, realizing I was raising my voice and not caring. "It would have taken one moment of consideration to let me know. What if I had wanted to go out? What if something had happened to you? I wouldn't have known."

"Listen here, you little shit," Mom snarled. She slammed her cup on the counter, sloshing drink all over her hand. "I don't appreciate your tone with me. So I went out and had a good time. I don't owe it to you to know my every move, you ungrateful brat."

I stepped away from her, my arms half raise in a defensive posture. My cheeks burned from shame. She might not hit me, but her words hurt just as much as a physical blow most of the time.

"Mom, I was worried." My voice is barely a whisper, but even if I had been speaking normally, she wouldn't have heard me. Mom was in full rant mode.

"I give, and give, and give. And you're never happy. You ungrateful, spoiled bitch." She picked up her cup again and threw it on the floor, shattering it. "I work, I provide you with a roof over your head. I give you clothes and feed you. But that's not enough, is it? Noooo. Little miss Rosa wants even more. She wants to go out. She wants special things. She wants and wants and wants. Not caring about her mom who has to do everything around here herself."

She looked around the small area and jumped on the dirty dishes by the sink. "You don't even do the smallest chores. It's just two bowls, Rosa. You couldn't even be bothered to do that?"

"You told me to not worry about doing the dishes until there was at least half a sinkful," I protested. How did this become about me? When did I become the problem here?

"Yeah, like a day or two ago. I didn't think it would take that long for the sink to fill. They should have been washed already. Gods, you should have figured that out yourself. Think, Rosa. Just think for once. Do I have to tell you every little thing?"

I shook my head, looking down. I couldn't speak. My throat had closed up, trying to keep the tears inside. My entire body shook as I hugged myself.

"Are you crying?" Mom scoffed. "Give me a break. You're almost eighteen. You think they'll put up with that whining and sniffling in the army? You'll be lucky if they don't kick you out. If they do, don't come running back here to me with your tail between your legs."

At eighteen, Imperials had to spend two mandatory years in the army. I had been looking forward to it my whole life because Mom used to tell me the most outrageous stories from her days. But the last year or so especially since I turned seventeen, she had gotten weird about me leaving. It was like she resented me being eager to go despite pushing me my whole life to be ready for it. Like it was my fault for having the audacity to grow up.

"Just remember, the moment you're eighteen, you're out the door," she reminded me for at least the hundredth time. "Don't think you can stay here and leech off me one second more than you can."

Having gotten the last word, as usual, she turned and stomped to her room. She slammed the door hard enough to make the walls shake. She didn't look back to see how I was doing.

Without an audience to criticize me, I fled to my own room, although quietly so Mom wouldn't come back and scream at me some more. I grabbed my pillow before climbing into the closet, my own personal sanctuary for times like these. I curled up in the corner, letting the darkness embrace me. I suppose the small space with the weight of clothes pushing down on me would have been claustrophobic for most people, but for me it was a comfort. I pressed my face against my pillow and sobbed, hoping the cloth would muffle my weeping.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," I berated myself. I knew what she was like when she was drunk. I shouldn't have said anything when she came in. I should have just gone to bed at a normal time or gone out myself instead of bothering her when she returned.

I cried for what seemed like forever until my throat was raw and my pillow was soaked with tears and snot. I sat up and coughed dryly, wishing for a glass of water, but afraid to go out lest I wake Mom. She could be vicious if defied, but that paled to her wrath if she was woken from a hangover.

As I rubbed my swollen eyes, I noticed that the closet was slightly ajar. There was just the tiniest bit of light where there had been none before. Predawn light was peeking through the window. Song birds called to each other as the day was starting. Bakers and other merchants could be heard moving outside getting their shops ready for the day.

I sighed as I leaned against the closet wall. I rubbed my sleeve over my nose, trying to rub the snot away without avail. It just clogged my nostrils up again as soon as I cleared it.

What kind of life was this? Walking on eggshells because the one person in the world I loved was as volatile as a faulty Dwemer tool? Spending all my nights worrying about her just for her to scream about how selfish and ungrateful I was?

Part of me couldn't wait to leave when I turned eighteen. The problem was that was another nine months away. My birthday had been last month, but the army recruited during New Life Day. If your birthday was during the first two months of the year like mine, you could join early. Could I last that long with all the anxiety, fear, and guilt?

And I realized that the answer was no. I couldn't handle more nights like these scared out of my mind about my mom. It didn't matter if she had taken off to go partying or if she was working. Any time she was gone, I'd had to ask myself if I would see her again.

I couldn't take endless nights of fighting with her, being made to feel like the scum of the earth. Being told how horrible and worthless I was. How she couldn't wait to be rid of me.

More importantly I didn't have to. Sure the mandatory recruitment drive was during New Life, but anyone could join at any time if they wanted to. They wouldn't take anyone younger than eighteen, but it's not like there's that much difference between eighteen and seventeen.

I jumped up and started packing a bag, throwing clothes randomly inside. I looked around my room and realized there wasn't anything I really cared about. No precious locket, no favorite toy, no treasured thing. I didn't even have any friends I would miss. I wasn't leaving anything important behind.

I realized I was smiling as I threw the backpack over my shoulders. I realized that the possibilities were endless. I could be anyone I wanted to be.

I could change my name as well as lie about my age. I hated my name. Rosa. So boring. So common. I could start over, begin a new. Be reborn.

I paused as I passed a mirror. Without stopping to think about it too much, I bunched my hair into a braid, grabbed up a pair of scissors and cut it off at the nape of my neck. Although I liked it, I had been wanting a change for about a year. Mom had insisted that I would look ugly with short hair.

I threw the bundle of hair on the counter next to the dirty dishes. I was a lot of things, but being a hypocrite was one I actively tried to avoid. Let Mom see that and take it as a message I wasn't coming back.

I stepped outside and breathed in the cool spring air. I smiled, already deciding that I would call myself Phoebe, a name I had loved since I was little. I closed the door of my childhood home behind me before heading off towards the Imperial City, not looking back even once.


End file.
